


Everything is Love

by zacharybosch



Category: Clash of the Titans (2010), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, The Big C (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Bears, Blow Jobs, Cancer, Death, Greece, Hannibal Extended Universe, M/M, One Night Stands, being positive about death, give it a chance, i feel bad putting those two tags next to each other, i think everyone knows what happens but JUST IN CASE, please heed the warning, spoilers for the big c, this is NOT meant to be a depressing fic, uhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15923444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacharybosch/pseuds/zacharybosch
Summary: On the evening of the day when he hadn’t risen with the sun, Lee decided to seek love one last time. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the encroaching dark, more that he wanted one final spark to light his way. A hearty send-off while he still had the strength for it, and the lasting memory of it to give him confidence to follow the path into the next life.---Lee Fallon and his final one night stand





	Everything is Love

**Author's Note:**

> does this ship have a name? i'm giving it a name. i'm calling it The Big D.
> 
> please be aware that i have only watched the big c and clash of the titans once each (the big c because it's too sad for rewatching and clash of the titans because it's rubbish) so minor details may be off. and also i completely invented draco's personality from scratch bc i can't remember what he's like in the film BYYYEEEEE

Lee knew that he was nearing the end. It was a morning like any other, except that he slept through the dawn instead of rising with the sun. When he did eventually push the blankets aside, his body felt hollow in a very particular way, and he _knew_.

Ten years he had managed to put it off. Everyone had to die some time, and now it seemed like it was Lee’s turn. He was mostly okay with it. He tried not to cultivate regrets or resentments, and could count on one hand (with fingers to spare) the few bitter moments of which he was unable to let go.

He had loved freely, indulged his whims, worked hard and gathered joy around himself. If he was a little too quick to move on, a little cold when someone tried to pin him down, it was only because it was necessary. Attachment was pain, in the end, and he would rather spare himself and those who came into his orbit. 

So Lee had been a man constantly on the move, sweeping in and out of lives like a midday thunderstorm, unwilling to put down roots but happy to drench everyone in the love he had to give, while he was there to give it. 

Some connections endured. Most didn’t. But Lee held each one tenderly to his chest before releasing it back into the world. Everything came to him as love, and he sent out love in turn.

On the evening of the day when he hadn’t risen with the sun, Lee decided to seek love one last time. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the encroaching dark, more that he wanted one final spark to light his way. A hearty send-off while he still had the strength for it, and the lasting memory of it to give him confidence to follow the path into the next life.

He had been in this city long enough that there was a bar he considered his usual, and in his usual was a new and unusual man. A gift from the universe perhaps, a great bear to ride into the sunset. If you put out enough love, it comes back to you tenfold, and sometimes it comes back in the form of a tanned, long-haired man, who has two silver stripes in his beard and big, encompassing arms. 

And warm amber eyes the colour of mead and firelight, that caught on Lee as soon as he entered the bar. 

This man was big, golden, strong and healthy-looking, the picture of life and vitality. Lee knew that he himself looked sallow, his lean runner’s body a little too thin, his cheeks a little sunken, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade him. They could be Hades and Persephone, death and life, the moon and the sun.

Lee sat on the empty stool next to the big golden man, and ordered him a drink.

***

They lay on Lee’s bed, blankets kicked off to the floor, wine glasses held loose between their hands. Lee never took men back to his place; it was always the toilets, or the backseat of a car, or someone else’s bedroom at a houseparty. Lee knew that if he’d taken Draco to the toilets of the bar instead, he would’ve gone without question and enjoyed every minute of it, but the idea hadn’t sat at all right in his mind. Draco was too lovely, too open-hearted and ready to go anywhere and do anything. His enjoyment of life and his desire to explore deserved more than a sticky bathroom.

“Draco. What a fantastic name,” Lee mused. “You sound like a Greek warrior.”

“Perhaps in another life,” Draco said, smiling. “I’ve spent many summers in Greece. First time I went, I stood on the white cliffs of Milos and gazed out to sea for days. There was no telling where the horizon was. I’d never seen anything so blue.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“The sea is dazzling, full of life. You should visit. I have a house on the cliffs.”

“I feel like I’m already there,” Lee said, and he meant it.

They kissed, perhaps for only a minute or two, or maybe it was for hours. Lee felt suffused with the warmth and light of Draco’s life, drawing strength from his skin and joy from the thick sweep of his hair as he pulled it from its braid.

Draco encircled Lee completely, hunched over him like a protective cocoon, long hair splayed out around his head and shutting out everything that wasn’t them. Their bodies fitted together awkwardly but earnestly, sharp hip bones poking into thick muscle, big hands stroking skinny arms.

“What do you want?” Draco asked between kisses.

“Whatever you have to give,” Lee said, face full of neck and mouth full of hair. “Show me the thing you like best.”

The thing Draco liked best turned out to be trailing his lips over Lee’s stomach and down to nuzzle at the juncture of his thighs.

“I love to give head,” said Draco, frank and unashamed. “I love the taste of a man on my tongue, salty and musky. I love the feel of it in my mouth, the heat.” He looked up the length of Lee’s body then, raising an eyebrow, a request for permission to go on.

Lee smiled, and combed a hand through Draco’s gold-grey hair. “So go ahead and show me.”

***

“Will I see you again?” Draco asked, light and carefree as anything, but Lee could hear the hope in his voice.

This was normally the part where Lee, had it not already been understood, would spell out what this was. Never unkindly, but always without opportunity for negotiation. He never lied to his partners, and told himself it was because he had more respect for them than that.

He knew already that he would never see the man again, but suddenly the prospect of telling Draco ‘no’ was too much to bear. Draco had so much warmth and life and love to give, Lee couldn’t stand the thought that he might dampen some of it with his swift cutting of ties.

“Yes,” he lied, “you can see me again. I’ll call you.” 

But in the end, it turned out that Lee didn’t lie to Draco. A week had passed since their night together. It felt very late in the evening, though in reality it was barely past five, and Lee lowered himself painfully into his bed, knowing that he would not get up again.

He had spent the day gathering the remaining scraps of his energy in order to perform a few necessary lingering tasks; tidying his meagre possessions, writing a small handful of notes, and laying out his personal documents neatly on the kitchen counter.

Lee had prepared himself fully for a solitary end. He had wanted it this way, to spare those close to him from seeing him so weak, and to spare himself from being surrounded by grief in his final moments. His head and heart were full of happy memories, and he painted them against the bare walls of his apartment as he lay propped up against pillows, breathing shallowly.

But there was a lack, unexpected and unprepared for. Some feeling, some vital essence that he couldn’t grasp fully, and it upset what should have otherwise been a calm and dignified journey into night. He could recall the last time he felt it, but the memory was like a candle attempting to replicate the light of the sun.

So he called Draco.

Perhaps it was cruel of him, to make this man he hardly knew bear witness to his death. But Draco had wanted to see him again, and Lee wanted to see him too. Above all, he wanted what he had always wanted: love. Simple, uncomplicated, earnest love. 

Draco arrived quickly. Maybe the weakness in Lee’s voice had alarmed him, or maybe he’d just been nearby. It didn’t matter. He had come, and his presence filled the room and shone so brightly that Lee could barely look at him.

“Should’ve told you… before,” Lee said, his voice faded to barely a whisper. “Cancer.” Then a wince, and a fragile laugh. “Might be terminal…”

Draco smiled, beautiful and genuine, as he came to sit on the bed. “Thank you, Lee. Thank you for asking me to be here.”

And then Draco cried. Not the awful, gasping sobs of a person raging against the injustice of death, but the steady, silent tears of someone who felt everything so deeply and thoroughly, and saw the beauty and the hurt and the life and decay of all of it. Draco cried for Lee’s life cut short, and he cried for the joy he and Lee had created together, and he cried for the vulnerable opening of Lee’s heart, allowing someone to be so close at his most private and final moment. Draco’s teardrops fell warm and heavy on Lee’s shoulder as he cradled him, asking no questions and demanding no doctor, just waiting, and holding.

“We would’ve been happy together,” Lee whispered.

“We were.”

Draco cried for the people who would eventually move into this apartment, and the lives and loves that they would have. He cried for the soil that would bury Lee, or the flames that would swallow him.

And when Lee finally, gently, went still in his arms, Draco cried for everything, because everything is love.

**Author's Note:**

> [here's the fic on tumblr](http://zacharybosch.tumblr.com/post/177840853069/everything-is-love) if you'd like to reblog it! i cried while writing this! thank!


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